As is known, multimedia content search methods on the internet provide for connecting a client, for example a personal computer, a PDA, or a mobile telephone, to the internet and loading a search page of a search provider, which is also connected to the internet. In particular, the term “search provider” is used to indicate one or more servers that comprise the search page and an application for providing a multimedia content search service.
Even more in particular, the search page comprises a text box or search field in which the user inserts a keyword or search text in general, which is associated with the multimedia content that the user intends to search, and an “enter” button that transfers the search text from the client to the search provider, which executes an application to search for multimedia content items associated with the search text.
The search provider communicates with a plurality of servers connected to the internet which store multimedia content associated with the search text, records the internet addresses (the “URLs” of such multimedia content), and transmits to the client a results page comprising at least one URL per item of detected multimedia content.
FIG. 1 shows a client 1 comprising a display in which is loaded a search page 2a of a search provider 3 that is connected to the client 1 through the internet, and a plurality of servers 5 which store respective multimedia content R1-RN. The multimedia content is stored on different servers 5, for example, content item R1 in a first server, content item R2 in a second server, content items R3 and R4 in a third server, and content item RN in a fourth server.
The multimedia content items R1-RN are in different electronic formats, for example images, audio, video, text, and the like.
The search page 2a comprises a search field, for example a text box 4, into which a search text “xxx” is inserted and subsequently sent to the search provider 3, which will execute an application 6 to detect, in the servers 5, the multimedia content items R1-RN associated with the search text “xxx”. The application 6 inserts the internet addresses (or URLs) of the multimedia content (also indicated, for simplification purposes, with references R1-RN) in a results page 9a, and transmits such results page 9a to the client 1. The client 1 loads the results page 9a in the display, as represented in FIG. 2a. In order to improve the reading and the selection of the multimedia content that is detected, known methods insert only the internet addresses of the multimedia content items in the results page 9a in a predetermined electronic format, for example HTML or text format, and group the addresses associated with the multimedia content items in other formats in different pages 9b, 9c, and 9d, that are accessible through respective buttons 7b, 7c, and 7d or hypertext links found on the results page 9a, each associated with a respective type of multimedia content (as represented in the example of FIG. 2b). The results pages 9b, 9c, and 9d in turn comprise a button for returning to the results page 9a. For example, pages 9b, 9c, and 9d comprise images, videos, and social networks, respectively.
While these known methods provide an overall classification of the type of information found by the search provider according to their format, these methods have the considerable disadvantage that the user is required to click on a hypertext link 7b to display a corresponding results page 9b, and such page 9b replaces, on the display of the client 1, the page 9a that was previously loaded, which substantially prevents simultaneous display of the internet addresses for different types of multimedia content items in the same results page.
Another disadvantage of the known methods is that in order to display a detected multimedia content item during the search that is listed in a results page by its internet address, it is necessary to load a new web page comprising such multimedia content item, which leads to an undesired increase in waiting times and costs for the user. This operation is particularly disadvantageous in cases in which a user would like to view a plurality of multimedia content items, given that several web pages, comprising the respective multimedia content items are loaded into the display device. In particular, the opening of different web pages, each associated with a different type of multimedia content, prevents having a practical and simple display of the search results.
Also known are methods in which the multimedia content, after having been selected through the corresponding internet address, is loaded in place of the results page.
However, these methods are subject to the disadvantage of losing the results page content, which forces the user to return to the search page and perform a new search if not interested in the selected content or wanting to select other multimedia content items.